Little Egg Harbor Township

Little Egg Harbor Township is a township in Ocean County, New Jersey. It took its name from Little Egg Harbor, named for the gull eggs found by Dutch explorer Cornelius Jacobsen May in 1614. In 1693, Holstein settler Hendrick Jacobs Falkenberg was the first European to settle in the area, acquiring an 800-acre tract of land from the Lenape in 1674. The township was incorporated on 13 February 1740, and it became part of Ocean County on 30 March 1891. In October 1778, it was the site of the Little Egg Harbor massacre during the American Revolutionary War, during which 50 American soldiers were bayonetted by American loyalists under Patrick Ferguson as they slept. In 2016, Little Egg Harbor had a population of 20,818 people.